Or at least he should have.”
Everything went dark. For a moment, Johnson fell unnaturally displaced. As if his insides were on his outside.
Then light flooded back. Not sunlight, mind you, but unnatural green light that only illuminated certain aspects of the world around them.
Bionic slowed his bike to a stop. Once he did this, Johnson could feel a strong wind blowing directly at them, distorting the edges of everything as though it were a real motion blur.
Both agents looked around, not daring to remove their protective helmets. They saw Milwaukee around them, right where it should be. They were on the other side of the highway wall they had went though to get to this place. The only difference was that everything was in ruins.
The nearby houses and buildings were decayed and partially dismantled, as if a nuclear bomb had detonated and almost decimated everything. There was no one nearby that the agents could see. Only cement fragments and hollow car frameworks.
This is impossible, Agent Johnson thought. This must be an illusion. We must have been poisoned and we are now unconscious. This is the only plausible explanation.
What the agent feared most was that his subconscious mind could create such a place.
“Agent Bionic, can you hear me?” Johnson asked over his earpiece. He silently wondered if Bionic was a function of his mind here or if their thoughts had somehow been connected.
Bionic heard him. “Loud and clear, Agent J.”
Then they both simultaneously asked, “Where are we?”
As if in answer, the truck the agents had been pursuing suddenly sped by in front of them, flashing in the unnatural green light.
“We’re sure as hell not in Kansas, and that truck is our yellow-brick road,” Bionic said in analogy before pressing the gas pedals and following the truck with haste.
Bionic found it very difficult to navigate through the rubble in this wind, but he managed to follow. Apparently, the drivers of the truck didn’t notice the motorcycle.
The agents followed it into a ruined parking garage on 20th and National. The inside of the basement of the garage was no different from the outside. The piercing wind continued nonstop and the greenish glow lit random sides of the pillars. Bionic drove his bike behind one of these pillars.
“Are you sure we’re not high?” he inquired.
Before Johnson could answer, the truck stopped and a man opened up the passenger’s door and stepped out. He then walked in front of the truck and began moving his arms in wide, sweeping gestures.
“I suppose we can remove our helmets,” Johnson said, noting the lack of headgear and the moving man. The two then removed their helmets and drew their weapons.
At least I still have this, thought Johnson. Maybe if we complete this task this nightmare will end.
The agent then signaled to Bionic to make a Phi formation. Bionic adhered to the command and snuck around to the other side of the truck. Green light from an unseen source lit this side of the truck. Bionic hoped he wouldn’t be spotted.
Both agents concurrently moved in. Johnson stood up and pointed his weapon at the man as soon as he was in front of the truck. He shouted something like, “Place your hands behind your head,” but it was lost and distorted in the wind and came out as a group of ghostly whispers.
Bionic was less peaceful in his method. He charged the man when he reached the front of the truck and rammed into him just as a giant portal green began to appear in front of them all.
As Bionic wrestled with the man, the portal widened and gave a view of what was on the other side. It was the same parking garage, only it was whole and undisturbed.
When the portal widened to the size of the truck, the driver of the large vehicle stated the engines again and revved the engine. This sound was also distorted when it reached Johnson’s ears.
Johnson ran to Bionic’s motorcycle, barely dodging the advancing truck. Once he reached it, the agent hopped on, popped the helmet back on, and started the ignition. He wheeled it around and drove up next to Bionic.
Bionic stood up and jumped on in front of Johnson. He then wrested the controls from that agent and spoke into his earpiece.
“Ain’t no one but me rides my baby,” he cackled, his voice barely audible without his helmet on.
Johnson held on as Bionic sped up. They guy Bionic had wrestled to the ground tried to jump on the motorcycle but missed. The agents made it into the portal just as it began closing.
Then all went dark once again.
***
“Agent Johnson.”
Johnson heard the words at the edge of his perception.
“Agent Johnson, wake up.”
The words came closer. Then Johnson could feel someone’s fingers on his neck, checking his pulse.
Soon Johnson felt close enough to open his eyes. He gazed at the sideways world around him.
He thought for a second he was back in the nightmare, but he then realized he was lying on his stomach, his face turned sideways.
“Agent Johnson, where were you?” came the question. Johnson couldn’t see who was speaking in this dark parking garage.
“Apprehending . . . a suspect,” Johnson wearily said, “Where is Agent Bionic?”
“He’s in the ambulance. We need to know where you were,” said the mystery speaker.
“Bionic was following the truck into this garage,” Johnson responded. He strained to rise and see who was speaking to him. It was a black-suited man. A supervisor from Johnson’s agency.
“How did you get here?” asked the inquisitor.
“Agent Bionic drove down 20th Street . . . it was in ruins . . . until we reached this place.”
“Why didn’t you report in?” the man questioned. After a moment’s pause, he asked, “What do you mean when you say ‘it was in ruins’?”
Johnson then remembered what he went through was a dream. It had to be. “I . . . I believe Agent Bionic and I were poisoned or rendered unconscious. We must have been transported here.”
“We have a witness – an officer, actually – that says Agent Bionic drove straight into traffic and perhaps crashed into a wall. No evidence was found of the latter.”
Johnson then realized what he had experienced was no dream.
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